It was somewhere in the early 2000's, when I tried to learn English the first time. I never competed the textbook. I doubt that I'd gone through half of it. I got bored of the "proper" way of studying pretty fast and skipped to the last pages of the book where there were short grammar rules explanations. And then I tried to read a native book which, of course, was an enormous task back then. 6 years ago I skipped grammar part of language learning almost completely. I only looked through those last pages to be sure that I can distinguish future, present and past tenses. Then I found the English learning forum and there were a lot of talks about grammar, so I felt that I was doing something wrong and I turned to so-often-recomended Murphy books. But I did the same - skimmed through it just to be sure I had some concept of grammar. Up to the last, 2017, year I'd not studied grammar, not paid much attention to it if at all. And even then I focused on tenses in the first place, plus articles. I remember reading about prepositions but I've not studied it in the way of grammar drilling, exercises. Adjectives, adverbs, all those"-ly", "-able", "-ness", "-ment" in the end of words, or "des-", "ir-", "un-", etc. in the beginning I have learned from exposure. Idioms, phrasal verbs, and whatever other things like that called - all these I've known from reading, watching, listening. And I've never had any trouble to parse a sentence, I don't know why.

I do beleive that I've been learning English by consuming a lot (or enough) of native materials in the first place. And even though I tried to find the truth about that paticular grammar topic called the Present perfect in textbooks I ended up to figure it out from watching series, not even from reading. But I think that it wouldn't fair to deny the fact that textbooks helped me too in the way that they introduced me to grammatical constructions, provided some tips. My mistake was putting grammar rules above the language itself.

aaleks wrote:I guess I learned it from that textbook English in Two Years / Английский язык за 2 года

I get a kick out of bold titles like that. I wish such resources would deliver. Though I guess it did not specify what kind/level of English one would be speaking/reading/etc. in two years

aaleks wrote:It was somewhere in the early 2000's, when I tried to learn English the first time. I never competed the textbook. I doubt that I'd gone through half of it. I got bored of the "proper" way of studying pretty fast and skipped to the last pages of the book where there were short grammar rules explanations. And then I tried to read a native book which, of course, was an enormous task back then. 6 years ago I skipped grammar part of language learning almost completely. I only looked through those last pages to be sure that I can distinguish future, present and past tenses. Then I found the English learning forum and there were a lot of talks about grammar, so I felt that I was doing something wrong and I turned to so-often-recomended Murphy books. But I did the same - skimmed through it just to be sure I had some concept of grammar. Up to the last, 2017, year I'd not studied grammar, not paid much attention to it if at all. And even then I focused on tenses in the first place, plus articles. I remember reading about prepositions but I've not studied it in the way of grammar drilling, exercises. Adjectives, adverbs, all those"-ly", "-able", "-ness", "-ment" in the end of words, or "des-", "ir-", "un-", etc. in the beginning I have learned from exposure. Idioms, phrasal verbs, and whatever other things like that called - all these I've known from reading, watching, listening. And I've never had any trouble to parse a sentence, I don't know why.

I do beleive that I've been learning English by consuming a lot (or enough) of native materials in the first place. And even though I tried to find the truth about that paticular grammar topic called the Present perfect in textbooks I ended up to figure it out from watching series, not even from reading. But I think that it wouldn't fair to deny the fact that textbooks helped me too in the way that they introduced me to grammatical constructions, provided some tips. My mistake was putting grammar rules above the language itself.

Reading about your experience is really fascinating. It shouldn't be fascinating, because learning via massive amounts of exposure makes a lot of sense. It's so easy and perhaps falsely reassuring to rely on textbooks while neglecting native material and then wonder why we don't know <insert target language> after two years despite doing everything the book said. There really is no substitute for engaging with material intended for native speakers. Every learner hopes to achieve that level of intuition about their TL.

Morgana wrote: I get a kick out of bold titles like that. I wish such resources would deliver. Though I guess it did not specify what kind/level of English one would be speaking/reading/etc. in two years

oops... I forgot how stupid the title sounds . No, it's not one of those books. It's actually something like a school textbook. "In two years" because it's meant to be used in 10th-11th grades. And it was the 8th edition of the book, so originally it might be a soviet textbook. In other words it's a boring school textbook

I need to learn how to write everythung I want, or need, to say in one run, so to speak...

I think I need to clear this part because I feel like I've overestimated my ability .

Adjectives, adverbs, all those"-ly", "-able", "-ness", "-ment" in the end of words, or "des-", "ir-", "un-", etc. in the beginning I have learned from exposure. Idioms, phrasal verbs, and whatever other things like that called - all these I've known from reading, watching, listening.

Technically English is my L3. The L2 was German which I started studying in school when I was 10. I didn't learn much, so my school experience doesn't matter really, but then later, after graduation, I made an attempt to continue to learn German on my own. Back then that included watching Deutsche welle I accidentally had on my TV, a bit of grammar in the form of grammar cards I made and leafed through regularly, and reading books, or more likely a book. The problem was that it wasn't so easy to find a German book in Russia back then, so I didn't have much of choices. The book I was reading had been written in the 19 century or so. It wasn't an easy reading . And my old dictionary didn't have all the words I needed, a new one I bought didn't have them either . So I had to learn to divide a word into parts: prefix, root, suffix, ending, etc. and basing on what I'd known about every or any of them I tried to figure out what the word meant. With English I just applied my old "technique".

It seems I was especially wordy the last couple of days . So I've thought that maybe it would be okey to ask to point out the mistakes I made in these posts (including this). I don't ask to point out all the mistakes and oddities. That would be too much to ask, but may be there is one you tripped over, or some pattern you have noticed. Anything. I'm just trying to figure out what to do next with my English. How to further improve it. I think that native speakers' feedback might help me with that

aaleks wrote: And it was the 8th edition of the book, so originally it might have beenbe a soviet textbook.

aaleks wrote: The problem was that it wasn't so easy to find a German book in Russia back then, so I didn't have much of choices.

Many choices, a lot of choices, lots of choices --- listed in order of formality. All are fixed expressions and any of them would work.

aaleks wrote:I don't ask to point out all the mistakes and oddities. That would be too much to ask, but may be there is one you tripped over,

"I'm not asking for anyone to..." "maybe"

And two typos -- everything and okay.

That's all I found in the last three posts.

I would think the thing that would make your English better at this point would be learning to write for different registers. Maybe giving yourself projects like writing a book review in formal academic style, writing a short children's story, writing a poem?

2 x

But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

Ani, thank you! very, very much okey/okay - It might be my native language influence In Russian it would be окей. And we use it a lot, although usually it's just "ок".

Ani wrote:I would think the thing that would make your English better at this point would be learning to write for different registers. Maybe giving yourself projects like writing a book review in formal academic style, writing a short children's story, writing a poem?

I've though about that. And I agree with you. I think I need at least to try to write something like a book review.

I know it is kind of daunting -- like how much academic type effort do you want to mix into your fun language learning hobby? I'm feeling this way about French right now. Checkout "annotated bibliography". The book summaries use language that is appropriate for college academics, but aren't so long as to be overwhelming. There are lots of examples and tips online. You could cover a book you've read in any language, or flat out make something up

1 x

But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

I would never have | would have hardlyhardly would have ever understood what the Present perfect is about had I not had enough exposure to English through TV and books, i.e. without input. The way they usually explain it in textooks is insufficient, and sometimes even misleading IMO if you look at it from an English learner perspective. It happens like that: you read about the tense in a textbook, try to make some sense out of what you've read, think that you get it, then you open a book and see that the tense is used quite differently, not the way you expect it should or would be (used).

At the same time, when I was google-searching about the Present perfect I found out that some of English learners have difficulty understandingto understand the difference between the Present perfect and the Present perfect Continuous (Progressive). Things like: I have studied vs I have been studying. But I have figured it out just by reading, watching and listening to native materials*. So that's never been an issue to me....

It was sometime | at some point/stagesomewhere in the early 2000's, when I tried to learn English the first time. I never competed the textbook. I doubt that I'd gone through half of it. I got bored of the "proper" way of studying pretty fast and skipped to the last pages of the book where there were short explanations of the grammar rulesgrammar rules explanations. And then I tried to read a native book which, of course, was an enormous task back then. 6 years ago I skipped the grammar part of language learning almost completely. I only looked through those last pages to be sure that I couldcan distinguish future, present and past tenses. Then I found the English learning forum and there was a lot of talk/discussion | were a lot of posts were a lot of talks about grammar, so I felt that I was doing something wrong and I turned to the so-often-recomended Murphy books. But I did the same - skimmed through it just to be sure I had some concept of grammar. Up to last year, 2017,the last, 2017, year I'd not studied grammar, not paid much attention to it if at all. And even then I focused on tenses in the first place, plus articles. I remember reading about prepositions but I've not studied it in the way of grammar drilling, exercises. Adjectives, adverbs, all those"-ly", "-able", "-ness", "-ment" in the end of words, or "des-", "ir-", "un-", etc. in the beginning I have learned from exposure. Idioms, phrasal verbs, and whatever other things like that are called - all these I've learnedknown from reading, watching, listening. And I've never had any trouble parsingto parse a sentence, I don't know why.

I do beleive that I've been learning English by consuming a lot (or enough) of native materials in the first place. And even though I tried to find the truth about that paticular grammar topic called the Present perfect in textbooks I ended up figuringto figure it out from watching series, not even from reading. But I think that it wouldn't be fair to deny the fact that textbooks helped me too in the way that they introduced me to grammatical constructions, provided some tips. My mistake was putting grammar rules above the language itself.----

Ani wrote:I know it is kind of daunting -- like how much academic type effort do you want to mix into your fun language learning hobby? I'm feeling this way about French right now. Checkout "annotated bibliography". The book summaries use language that is appropriate for college academics, but aren't so long as to be overwhelming. There are lots of examples and tips online. You could cover a book you've read in any language, or flat out make something up

Right now I'm thinking how to turn academic into fun . Thanks for the advices. I'm going to use them.